LiveIn Skin
by Cherry
Summary: Mal, Zoe, and lines in the dirt - all the reasons Wash never has to worry about anything between them.


Live-In Skin  
CherryIce  
  
Zoe, Mal, and lines in the dirt -- all the reasons Wash never has to worry about anything between them.  
  
Thanks to Shai, for taking a look over this. Archival is my site and anyone who asks. I doubt anyone has been deluded into believing that I own Firefly, but for clarity's sake: I don't.  
  
  
*  
  
  
"For the last time, Zoe, I said no! I'm not going to repeat myself on more gorram time."  
  
"Good, sir. Then I won't have to ignore you again."  
  
"You're not disobeying a direct order from your captain, now are you?"  
  
"Well, sir, as far as I figure--"  
  
"Do I pay you for figuring, Zoe?"  
  
"Have you been paying me at all, lately? Sir?"  
  
"Is that what this is about? Because I'll *give* you his share. You don't have to marry him to get it."  
  
"As I was saying -- as far as I figure, marriage is about love."  
  
"Ah, Zoe, so young in the ways of the world. Marriage is about sex, and never having it ever again. That, or power. Or convenience. Conveniently marrying someone you've been sleeping with to accumulate power so you never have to sleep with them again."  
  
"Yes, sir. I'm sleeping with the pilot to move up in the hierarchy of the ship."  
  
"I never said it was *you.* It's Wash. Your would-be husband is using you to get to me. He says he loves you for your mind, when what he's really after is my body."  
  
"Sir, I'd be eternally grateful if you never said that. Ever again."  
  
"Oh, I don't know..."  
  
"Or I will be forced to do something rendering you incapable of doing so."  
  
"And deprive your ship of her captain? You'd never."  
  
"You don't think I'm creative enough to pull both off?"  
  
"Right then. Moving on."  
  
"As I was saying -- marriage is about love."  
  
"This is not moving on, Zoe. This is you, still refusing to listen to me."  
  
"And chain of command doesn't say anything about love."  
  
"If you do this, I'm going to take the chain of command and..."  
  
"And do what, sir?"  
  
"I'll--"  
  
"Yes, sir?"  
  
"This is how it's going to be, then?  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"So, because of the chain of command, I *can't* have anything to say about it? Because I'm your captain I aint got nothing to say about?""  
  
"No, sir. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying in spite of it, this is no business of yours, because 'captain' don't say anything about love."  
  
"And that's all I am? A 'yes, sir' - except for when 'yes' is 'no?'"  
  
"You're not in love with me, sir."  
  
"Goddamn it, Zoe, This is *my* tub, and you got no right to tell me how I feel."  
  
"You're not."  
  
"I could be in love with you."  
  
"Sir."  
  
"What? You've got those legs that go on and on and--"  
  
"You're not in love with me for the same reasons I'm not in love with you."  
  
"--and you could kick my ass with one hand tied behind behind your back--"  
  
"Only one, sir?"  
  
"--with both hands behind your back, one leg cut off at the knee, and both eyes closed--"  
  
"Tell me if I was blind and legless and attacking you, you'd pull a gun while I tried to figure out where I was."  
  
"Well, I would, but that's not the point."  
  
"There's a point hiding in all this?"  
  
"I find it damn sexy."  
  
"You find amputation sexy, sir?"  
  
"You're missing my point again, Zoe."  
  
"You're not making it very well, captain."  
  
"I could be in love with you."  
  
"But you're not, sir. For the same reason I'm not in love with you."  
  
"Now, I can't imagine why you're not. You find my roguish charm overwhelming? My boyish good looks make your heart beat too fast? You're afraid you'd lose me to another girl?"  
  
"Sir--"  
  
"Now, there's one you won't have to worry about with him. It takes a -- well, a some sort of woman to get past the toy dinosaurs."  
  
"Remove your arm, or I'll remove it from you. Sir."  
  
"For, you mean. Remove it for me."  
  
"No, sir. You heard me correctly."  
  
"We don't have a doctor, so *you'd* just have to sew it back on. You'd just be creating more work for yourself"  
  
"I know you too well."  
  
"--Beg your pardon?"  
  
"I know you too well to be in love with you."  
  
"Well, I'm not quite sure how to take that, there."  
  
"And you know me."  
  
"Well, that there--"  
  
"You see the same scenes engraved on your lids when you close your eyes. Your fingers tighten on your chopstick when Serenity's engines growl during dinner and a piece ricochets off the hull; and I know because my knuckles are white, too. You can't stand on a hilltop and you can't sleep without your gun and you spend half your conversations waiting for people to stop talking because the left side of their skull has just disappeared."  
  
"Zoe..."  
  
"And I know, because I'm the same. He falls asleep and I wake up beside him, and I can't move, I can't *breathe,* until I see his eyes flicker or his chest rise and fall. "  
  
"Zoe..."  
  
"We're still living in the same space, captain. We're still bleeding the same smoke and breathing the same blood; and you're not in love with me, sir, because there's no way else for us to be."  
  
"That's awfully poetic, Zoe."  
  
"Well, sir..."  
  
"I know. I tell anyone, and you do things to me too perverse to even speak of."  
  
"Exactly, sir. It's good to see we understand each other."  
  
"He won't, you know. Understand."  
  
"I know. He can't comprehend, and if I have my way, he'll never even be able to imagine."  
  
"Won't that be a bit lonely?"  
  
"No, sir. Because you'll still know. And I won't let you be alone in it, either."  
  
"It won't be the same, you know."  
  
"It's always going to be the same, captain. Once you've been in Serenity..."  
  
"...you never leave."  
  
"You're not going to lose me, Mal. Not to him, leastwise."  
  
"Never crossed my mind for an iota."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"It really didn't."  
  
"I believe you, sir."  
  
"There are worse places to be, Zoe."  
  
"Some, sir. But this still isn't one to be alone in."  



End file.
